Premises for Applying Medicine to Architecture as a System

Classical Physics as Rules

The laws of classical physics appear to operate not simply as physical phenomena but as a kind of “rule.” This means that they are not confined to a particular medium.

Fluid mechanics is one example. Its rules apply to fluids, but they also apply wherever an “aggregate of particles” flows. They are sometimes applied to traffic, pedestrian movement, and even flows of information. The inverse-square law is another example. Observed in universal gravitation and magnetic forces, this law also appears in economics and sociology. It is applied to the reach of facilities and to theories of urban centers.

Other things that, in a reductionist hierarchy, sit below physics and fall within the domain of classical physics show similar tendencies. Computers are a representative example. They operate at the boundary between classical physics and mathematics. Computers work through binary numbers, and the computers we commonly use are built around electrical signals: two states, on and off. But as long as two states are available, a computer can, in principle, be made from anything. Konrad Zuse's Z1 / Z2 implemented computing through mechanical binary states using levers, and there are examples of computers implemented through fluid flow, heat, magnetic states, and other media.

Here, the point is not that physical laws “apply unchanged” to social phenomena, but that the same mathematical structures and conditions of stability recur across different media.

Architecture as a System

When architecture is understood as a system, there is considerable scope for applying these ideas.
For example, the inverse-square law mentioned earlier could serve as a method for determining the location of a particular facility. It could help locate community spaces in housing developments or restrooms in public facilities. Such methods are, in fact, used in urban engineering.

Medicine as a Complex System

Another interesting example within the domain of classical physics is “medicine.”
The closer it is to surgery, the greater the influence of physical factors; the closer it is to psychiatry, the further it moves beyond that influence.
Medicine, however, is fundamentally concerned with complex systems, making it a suitable basis for inferring characteristics that might also appear in other complex systems.

For example, if “humanity” as a species is viewed as a single organic system, humanity today could be diagnosed with systemic metabolic syndrome.
Five pathological signs correspond precisely, in structural terms, to systemic metabolic syndrome: excessive energy intake (the rate of fossil fuel consumption), abnormal expansion of storage tissues (cities, infrastructure, and long-term waste), declining metabolic efficiency (slower growth relative to energy input), resistance to regulatory signals (humanity's failure to respond to changes such as low birth rates and environmental shifts), and chronic inflammation (a persistent state of stress involving the environment, war, and so on).

Applying Medicine to Architecture

Could medicine, then, be applied to architecture?
Le Corbusier's concept of “surgery” offers a possible reference. His idea of surgery arose from diagnosing nineteenth-century Paris as a diseased organism. Comparing narrow streets to blood vessels and mixed uses to confused organ functions, he argued that surgical intervention was necessary.
“Surgery” was proposed here in the sense of “removal rather than preservation,” “changing the entire system rather than making local improvements,” “differentiation of functions,” and “expert leadership.”
Although this was a direct application of medicine and a worthwhile attempt, it remained far too metaphorical. The medical method actually employed amounted to little more than “incision,” an operation too general to be considered specifically derived from medical thinking.

Applying medical processes that begin with diagnosis, together with medical methodologies, to architectural practice could constitute a meaningful and practical project.
(To be developed further)

Premises

Reductionism
Reductionism is a school of thought that sees the whole as the sum of its parts and defines higher-level concepts by breaking them down into lower-level elements.
It is considered a foundation of “scientific thinking.”

Generally,

a hierarchy is understood to run from sociology to psychology, biology, chemistry, physics (and mathematics).

From this perspective, every field is ultimately an application of physics.
Modern reductionism is therefore generally closely associated with [[Materialism]].

Other forms, such as idealist reductionism, also exist.

[[Complex Systems]] are often raised as a challenge to reductionism. This is because of [[Emergence]], through which the whole cannot be constituted merely as the sum of its parts.
Reductionists, however, sometimes account for this through “interaction.”
Teleologism, Systematism